Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Node.js 20+ -- download. Required even if you installed Claude Code via the native installer, because OpenWolf's hooks run as Node.js scripts.
• Claude Code -- OpenWolf is middleware for Claude Code. Any installation method works: native installer, npm, Homebrew, or WinGet. The Claude Code desktop app is also supported.

Install OpenWolf

npm install -g openwolf

Verify the installation:

openwolf --version

Initialize a project

Navigate to any project and run:

cd your-project
openwolf init

You'll see:

  ✓ OpenWolf initialized
  ✓ .wolf/ created with 11 files
  ✓ Claude Code hooks registered (6 hooks)
  ✓ CLAUDE.md updated
  ✓ .claude/rules/openwolf.md created
  ✓ Anatomy scan: 47 files indexed
  ✓ Daemon: start manually with: openwolf daemon start

  You're ready. Just use 'claude' as normal. OpenWolf is watching.

That's it. No configuration needed. Just use claude as you normally would.

Verify it's working

openwolf status

OpenWolf Status
===============

  ✓ All 11 core files present
  ✓ All 7 hook scripts present
  ✓ Claude Code hooks registered (6 matchers)

Token Stats:
  Sessions: 0
  Total reads: 0
  Total writes: 0
  Tokens tracked: ~0
  Estimated savings: ~0 tokens

Anatomy: 47 files tracked

Daemon: initialized

What happens next?

Every time you run claude in this project:

1. Session starts -- OpenWolf creates a session tracker and logs the start to memory.md
2. Before file reads -- the hook checks if the file was already read (warns you) and shows the anatomy description
3. Before writes -- the hook scans your cerebrum.md Do-Not-Repeat list and warns if you're about to repeat a known mistake
4. After reads -- token usage is estimated and tracked
5. After writes -- anatomy.md is updated with the new/changed file, memory.md gets a log entry
6. On stop -- session totals are written to the token ledger

You don't interact with any of this. It's invisible.

View the dashboard

The simplest way to get going. This auto-starts the daemon and opens the dashboard:

openwolf dashboard

Opens http://localhost:18791 with real-time token usage, project anatomy, cron status, cerebrum state, and more.

Optional: Persistent daemon with PM2

For production use, you can run the daemon via PM2 for auto-restart and boot persistence:

npm install -g pm2

openwolf daemon start

Windows

Run pm2-windows-startup for boot persistence after installing PM2.

PM2 is optional

openwolf dashboard starts the daemon automatically without PM2. PM2 is only needed if you want the daemon to survive terminal closures and auto-start on boot.

AI-powered tasks

OpenWolf includes two weekly AI tasks that use your Claude subscription (not API credits):

• Cerebrum reflection -- reviews and cleans up cerebrum.md (Sundays 3am)
• AI suggestions -- analyzes your project and generates improvement suggestions (Mondays 4am)

These run automatically via the daemon's cron scheduler. You can also trigger them manually:

openwolf cron run cerebrum-reflection
openwolf cron run project-suggestions

ANTHROPIC_API_KEY conflict

If you have ANTHROPIC_API_KEY set in your environment, OpenWolf automatically strips it when running AI tasks so that claude -p uses your subscription credentials from ~/.claude/.credentials.json instead. This prevents "Credit balance is too low" errors when your API key has no credits but your subscription is active.

Design QC

Design QC captures full-page sectioned screenshots of your running app so Claude can evaluate the design. It requires puppeteer-core and a Chrome/Chromium installation:

npm install -g puppeteer-core

Then run:

openwolf designqc

OpenWolf will auto-detect (or start) your dev server, detect routes from your project structure, and capture screenshots at desktop (1440px) and mobile (375px) viewports. Screenshots are saved to .wolf/designqc-captures/.

After capture, tell Claude:

Read the screenshots in .wolf/designqc-captures/ and evaluate the design.

Claude reads the images directly and provides inline feedback. No external design tools or services needed.

Options

Use --url http://localhost:3000 to specify a dev server URL manually. Use --desktop-only to skip mobile captures. Use --routes /,/about,/pricing to capture specific routes.

Reframe

Need help choosing a UI component framework? Just ask Claude:

Help me pick a UI framework for this project.

OpenWolf ships a knowledge file (.wolf/reframe-frameworks.md) that Claude reads automatically. It covers 12 frameworks -- shadcn/ui, Aceternity UI, Magic UI, DaisyUI, HeroUI, Chakra UI, Flowbite, Preline UI, Park UI, Origin UI, Headless UI, and Cult UI -- with a decision tree, comparison matrix, and ready-made migration prompts.

There is no CLI command for reframe. It works through Claude's normal conversation flow.

Windows path separators

If you see path errors on Windows, ensure you're using a recent Node.js 20+ release. OpenWolf normalizes paths internally, but some edge cases require Node 20.10+.